I had to buy a DVD, it took me over 5 hrs to download video conversion software to my pc and then transfer the movie to the playbook.

Thats a bit too much work. I havent seen a DVD in years, why didnt you just download a online version of the movie you were looking for?
The PB does streams MP4 as well, I think that you should inform yourself better about the product previous of buying it.
Also, 95% of the tech problems are the end user and not the product itself, I do blame the PB for some stuff but having a hard time transferring files and streaming a content stored in its hard drive is a bit too much to blame it for and it's definitely something it does well...